"A blue whale's heart is as big as a Volkswagen Beetle," I told a group of wide-eyed fourth graders. "It is so big, you could walk around inside of it."
“Why do blue whales have such enormous hearts?" I asked.
I put them into groups with iPads and books. "Let the investigations begin!" I exclaimed.
After 40 minutes, they shared their discoveries.
"Blue whales swim all over the world," said Ki'ara, "So they need a humongous heart to be their motor."
"Blue whales can call to each other over almost one thousand miles," said Heavenly. "They need a big heart to talk to each other."
"They swim together in pairs," said Amare, "So they need huge hearts to to care for each other."
"Yeah," said Isaac, "That's true...it takes a huge heart to care for somebody."
"Kids who are nice to me on the playground must have a big heart like a blue whale," added Aydan. "And people who are mean must have small hearts."
"Hmmm," I said. "I like your scientific answers. I like your insight into caring hearts, too. I wonder...how can we have big hearts instead of small hearts for each other?"
We came up with these ideas -
1) Everybody can play with everybody on the playground - nobody gets left out
2) If you say one mean thing to someone, say three nice things about them
3) Put your arm around someone who is being bullied
I like to teach science...to watch children wonder through the world...to hear them talk about things as small as atoms and as large as blue whales.
I also like to teach empathy...to model ways we can care for other people and other living things.
Dr. Perri Klass, in her small essay for the New York Times titled "Understanding How Children Develop Empathy," writes about the importance of modeling sympathy and compassion to children so those things are part of their experience long before they know the words.
9 out of 10 families around my school, however, live in a grinding, destructive poverty that makes it difficult to model sympathy and compassion, to nurture community and caring. My students often come to school knowing more about the survival of the fittest than the survival of the kindest.
Yet here were my 9 and 10 year olds working together in communities and talking about caring for each other, exploring ways they could have big hearts instead of small hearts for each other.
I sent out an e-mail to my school . "Have you seen an act of kindness from a student over the past few weeks that touched you?"
Here are some of the answers I got -
"I have a student named Briana who goes above and beyond helping others," wrote a 1st grade teacher. "For example, she helps a student who struggles with her academic work. She will stop what she is doing to help her understand more about what we are doing. She helps her out before I can get to her! She is such a helping hand. I think this shows great character in Briana. She is always giving to others without asking for anything in return!"
"A couple of weeks ago," wrote our school secretary, "I saw Jaylen stop what he was doing in the front office and look at Noah, who was having trouble tying his shoes. He went over to not only help him tie his shoes to but teach him how to tie them as well. He's a great kid!"
"Victor is working with a 1st grade Limited English Proficiency student," wrote a 4th grade teacher. "He brought her over to me today to brag about how much her language and academic skills are improving. You should have seen the smile on her face...and his, too!"
I often think about a paradox. One of my most important tasks as a teacher is to model sympathy and compassion for my students. Yet the students in my Title I school are often the ones who model sympathy and compassion for me.
They help me remember to listen and look for empathy all around me and to nurture it wherever I find it. By doing that, I can help my school, my community, and my world stand up to small hearted hatred with a heart as big as a blue whale's heart.
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